Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

Hon. Dr. Harsha de Silva

Member of Parliament

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

Harsha de Silva, Member of Parliament, is the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka. He served as Deputy Minister of Policy Planning and Economic Affairs from January – August 2015 and prior to that was also the spokesperson for economic affairs for the then opposition, the United National Party (UNP). He started out as the chief economist and treasurer of DFCC Bank and later became a successful entrepreneur who co-founded and built what is today the country’s largest market and social research agency, Nielsen Lanka. Having sold his stake in the company, he consulted with the World Bank, ADB, UNDP and many other multilateral agencies for over 10 years in more than 20 countries. He was also a visiting faculty member at the Universities of Sri Jayawardenepura and Moratuwa in Sri Lanka for a number of years and has published widely on technology and development. He holds a Ph.D in economics from the University of Missouri and has had executive training at MIT. He is an Eisenhower Fellow.